Alex grinned. “Not at all. But be warned, we’ll be the most exciting news in Severton tomorrow when people find out you were here overnight.”
She managed a laugh. If only those rumours could be true.
Two
She’d insisted he didn’t need to change his sheets when he’d said they’d only been on for a couple of days. She’d also insisted she was fine and that she’d overreacted. The first Alex was pretty sure she was telling the truth about, but he knew she was lying about the second.
But she wasn’t the only one who was lying. He was too and had been for about seven months, because he had a very good idea who Abigail Walker really was.
Alex sprawled out on the sofa, pulling a blanket over him. He had no reason to get up early tomorrow, but he knew around about seven in the morning, one of the dogs would wake him, needing to investigate the long garden at the back of his house and pee in their special spots.
Creatures of habit. Just like him.
Kind of.
He flicked through the channels on TV, looking for something to focus his mind on other than the person who had been hanging around when Abby was locking up, and well, Abby in general.
In the time she’d lived in Severton, she’d never gone on a single date. There had been a line of men who’d wanted to ask her out: several of his constables had asked him if she was single, he’d seen her get hit on when she was working, but she’d never given anyone any more than the polite time of day. She’d kept friends at arm’s length, never getting too close to anyone until recently when she’d let down her guard enough to become friends with Sorrell and Keren, and his cousin Rayah.
Alex scrolled though his phone, checking the message that had just come through from Ste. It was a quiet night overall. The firebugs that had been a problem the last couple of summers had stayed away, there had been no issues with the usual groups of teenagers hanging around and causing a disturbance; even the Coven, Severton’s group of seventy and eighty year old women known for distilling their own gin and sexually harassing men under the age of fifty, had been quiet.
CCTV showsa man in a beanie hat with his coat collar pulled up hanging around near the bar and surrounding areas about five minutes before Abby left. Caught him following her but next camera not working.
Alex readthe message twice and responded, telling Ste to check on her house and do a couple of drives past his, just in case someone had followed her there. He put his phone down and rearranged the cushions that were Rayah’s cast offs into some sort of pillow.
For at least a few weekends each year, Alex would camp out in the Peak District, climbing during the day before walking a few miles to the next camp spot and the site of the climb for the next day. Sleeping on a sofa compared with a hard, probably stony, floor, was luxury, so he knew it wouldn’t be that which kept him awake.
It would be Abby.
Slim, pretty Abby with long blonde hair and legs that went on for days. The woman who knew how to give back as good as she got in the bar and could hold a conversation with anyone. The woman who he knew could climb up a sheer mountain face as well as he could, because he’d seen her do it once when she had no idea he was there.
The woman who looked a damn site like a travel blogger he’d followed as she took on some of the most dangerous climbs in the world in between checking out cities. A blogger who’d gone to ground about two years ago.
He started to doze off, tiredness just about too much. The TV slipped onto standby mode, the security light outside flicked on when a fox visited the garden and a police car drove past, checking all was okay.
Alex stayed asleep, even through Hansel waking up and going to the window to see the fox and a whine from Gretel when she dreamed about rabbits she couldn’t catch. It wasn’t until the slight creak of a cupboard echoed through from the kitchen just before the sun rose that he rubbed his eyes and sat up, bolt wide awake.
Wearing just a pair of black boxer briefs, he strode into the kitchen, slightly disorientated from the noise of another person being in his house.
It took half a second to become fully awake. Abby was stretching up to the cupboard where he kept the glasses, his T-shirt not quite covering all of her backside as she reached. Long slim legs were fully exposed, bare feet and the bottom of her neat backside.
Shit.
It was an automatic physical reaction to get an erection. Being woken up and finding a half-naked very attractive woman nearby was going to have that effect. But the kitchen was only lit by moonlight, so she’d hopefully not notice.
“Crap.” She almost dropped the glass. “I didn’t know you were there. Fuck.” She put the glass down and held onto the side of the worktop.
“Sorry.” Alex rubbed his face again. “I heard a noise and forgot it might be you. Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Just needed a drink of water. Want one?”
“Please.”
She reached up to get another glass, which he realised was a bad idea. He had no idea if she was wearing anything under her T-shirt or not. His treacherous dick was hoping not.
The sound of water made him focus on being under a cold shower, not Abby’s legs and backside.
“Are you sleeping okay?” he managed to get the words out.
